Paul Howes finally gets it

by Don Keayes

Writing in today’s Sunday Telegraph, National Secretary of the AWU Paul Howes finally gets what the rest of us have known for ages … that in the real world the Greens are poison.

The Greens … have carefully built a political brand based on social conscience and concern for the environment. The benign, smiling face of Bob Brown convinced many that the Greens and Labor could co-exist as two sides of a harmonious progressive political movement.

But beneath the marketing spin, the Greens are run by hardliners who believe they know better than anyone else. Beneath the marketing spin, the Greens are fundamentally opposed to the core values of the labour movement. They openly want to crush the jobs of hardworking Australians in the very industries that support our national prosperity.

Of course, it’s all a bit rich coming from a guy who seems to have very little problem with the lowest paid employees in the country handing over their hard-earned so that union officials like his good self can live very lavish lifestyles indeed. [And that’s even before we get to Craig Thompson’s hookers!]

Oh, and then there’s his Party’s alliance with the Greens in order to form government … didn’t he know what the Greens were about before now, or was he in fact willing to put up with it while his own interests were being served? What Mr Howes has finally woken up to seems not to be the damage the Greens are doing to workers, but how his Party’s ‘marriage of convenience’ to them has effectively torn up his ticket to ride the parliamentary gravy train again next year. I think that’s the real message in this classic line:

The Greens juggernaut is now threatening to cause serious long-term damage to the cause of the labour movement and progressive politics in Australia.

If only Mr Howes and people like him would realise that all ‘progressive’ politics is about gaining and maintaining power at the expense of everybody else – friends included. And just as there’s no honour among thieves there are certainly no scruples on the totalitarian side of politics. The ALP is no exception!